The Asus Chromebit, announced by Google today packs a lot of computing power into a little itty bitty form factor and a sub-$100 price point:
Plug this stick into any display with an HDMI port, like most big-screen TVs nowadays have, and suddenly you have a Google Chrome desktop at your disposal.

Space
Invaders is an arcade video game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado and
released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in
Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the
Midway division of Bally. Wikipedia

There is a lot of controversy and hullabaloo about the new law passed in Indiana.

In my opinion, this law is not about religion, it is about PERSONAL FREEDOM!

I, as a person, have a right to choose what type of persons I associate with.

I am an agnostic. I lack any religious beliefs at all. In my book, organized religion is for FOOLS!

I choose not to associate with alcoholics, drug users, or criminals. If I choose NOT to associate with homosexuals or lesbians, it is my personal sets of beliefs that are being questioned or endangered.

If political party X, or Y, or Z chooses to promote certain types of lifestyles, that is their own business or prerogatives.

DO NOT FORCE YOUR SET OF BELIEFS ON THE REST OF SOCIETY. Gentle persuasion should be the norm.

I find the homosexual lifestyle to be unnatural and abnormal. I do not associate with them. I do not persecute them.

My beliefs have nothing to do with religion.

I choose what type of beliefs I have. And I do not let other people and/or organizations try to manipulate me.

Pro-independence parties in Spain’s Catalonia have agreed on a
preliminary deal for the region’s independence from Spain if they win
the majority of votes in regional elections scheduled to be held in
September.

The Federation of Cuban Workers (CTC) today, March 30, issued a convocation calling on workers, their families, and the entire people to actively participate in the celebration of May Day with massive marches in plazas and avenues across the country, under the banner of ‘Unity in the construction of socialism.’

It’s good to be friends with Sen. Menendez: Give him gifts and campaign money, and he’ll use his position to take care of your business interests.

Sen. Menendez is reportedly under investigation for intervening with federal officials to help a close friend, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, in disputes over Medicare billing and a Dominican port security contract. Dr. Melgen, his family, and his company have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Sen. Menendez and committees supporting him. Additionally, Sen. Menendez took two personal trips to the Dominican Republic aboard Dr. Melgen’s jet, while failing to disclose them as gifts.

Three-term U.S. Senator from New Jersey

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee

Reportedly under federal investigation for using his position to benefit the business interests of a close friend and campaign donor

Under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee for failing to disclose private flights to the Dominican Republic as gifts

One of two members from New Jersey named in CREW’s Most Corrupt report

Friday, March 27, 2015

Greece submitted a long-awaited list of structural reforms to its creditors on
Friday as its leftist-led government warned it would stop meeting debt
obligations if negotiations failed and aid was not forthcoming.

The bumbling, short-sighted policies of the German government under
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the spineless Brussels bureaucracy
dominated by Berlin are in many ways similar to previous miscalculations
by European leaders that plunged Europe and the world into disaster.

And
it is not helped by a U.S. foreign policy in disarray under the weak
and uneven leadership of a president ill-equipped to deal with global
realpolitik.

Senator Elizabeth Warren cemented her growing reputation as a darling
of the political left on Tuesday with a wide-ranging speech challenging
the Obama administration to take on Wall Street and break up its
biggest banks.

"We have got to get back to running this country for American
families, not for its largest financial institutions," said Warren, who
said the issue was an indictment of how little had changed since the
2008 banking crash.

The four biggest Wall Street banks are 30% larger than before the
financial crisis, she said, while the five biggest institutions hold
more than half the bank assets in the country.

Havana, Mar 26 (Prensa Latina) Cuba and the United States will open
dialogues next week on Human Rights, meeting suggested by Havana and
accepted by Washington, said here a Foreign Ministry official.
In press conference, Pedro Luis Pedroso, general deputy director for
Multi Lateral Affairs and International Law in the Foreign Affairs
Ministry said the dialogue will take place on March 31st in the USA
capital.

Cuba expects the meeting will take place in a
constructive environment, on reciprocal basis, without conditions, or
discriminatory treatment and within full respect to the sovereignty,
independence and the no interference in the parties internal affairs,
Pedroso said.

He added the dialogue will include topics of
interest for both countries and in that context Cuba will talk on its
achievements in the promotion and protection of Human Rights, not only
for the people, but also to numerous nations in the world, with which
the country has cooperated in sectors like health and education.

At the same time we will talk on our concerns about the situation of
Human Rights in USA and in other places where that country has direct
incidence, he added.

These talks on Human Rights are an example
of the will of Cuba to exchange with USA on any topic despite
differences, under basis of equity and reciprocity, he remarked.

We are conscious of the deep differences between us and the USA
government regarding political systems, democracy, human rights and
international law but we have the invariable wish that both countries
can have a civilized relationship within the recognition and respect of
these differences, he added.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

(Reuters) - The United States removed 45 companies and individuals from a Cuba sanctions blacklist on Tuesday, most of them dead people, defunct companies or sunken ships.

Among them was Amado
Padron, a Cuban executed by a firing squad 26 years ago along with
Arnaldo Ochoa, a decorated army general who was sentenced to death by
Cuba's communist government after he was found to be connected to
international drug trafficking.

The
U.S. Treasury Department said the delisting was aimed at clearing
"out-of-date" names from its list of Specially Designated Nationals.

Washington
bans those designated from trading with U.S. individuals or companies,
who face heavy fines if caught doing business with them.

The
Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed six people,
28 companies and 11 vessels from the list as part of an ongoing review
of older cases. Four of the people are dead and two were delisted
because the companies they were affiliated with were dissolved,
officials said.

The ships had either sunk or were otherwise not operational.

"While these removals are not related to the recent changes to our Cuba
sanctions program and rather reflect OFAC's consistent effort to review
and update its SDN list, these delistings are in line with the
President's Cuba policy," OFAC said.

President Barack Obama rewrote longstanding Cuba
policy in December, agreeing with Cuban President Raul Castro to restore
diplomatic relations and seek to end more than five decades of
animosity between the old Cold War rivals.

Obama
has since eased the U.S. trade embargo by allowing some financial
transactions and sales of computer technology and construction materials
to Cuba while permitting importers to buy from Cuban independent contractors.

The Specially Designated Nationals list adds another level of sanctions, banning transactions even in fields cleared by Obama.

"It's
life or death for these companies," said Washington-based trade
sanctions lawyer Scott Maberry. "You want to be taken off because that
gives you access to the U.S. financial system."

For four people just taken off the list, death has already come.

Besides
the man executed in 1989, the list included revolutionary Osvaldo
Castell, a Cuban who led a 1957 assault on the presidential palace, two
years before Fidel Castro's rebels came to power. Castell died in 2011
at age 78.

Another was
Panamanian politician and one-time presidential candidate Carlos Duque,
who died last year at 84. It did not say what his Cuba links were. He was an ally of former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, ousted from power by U.S. forces in 1989.

JG: These are purely cosmetic changes. What is really needed is for the U.S. government to remove Cuba from their nefarious list of countries who promote terrorism. The whole world knows that statement or charge is not true. The U.S. government no longer rules Cuba with its appointed puppets of the day. It is time for the U.S. government to join the civilized world.

HAVANA (AP) - Bookings to Cuba jumped 57 percent for one New York tour operator in the weeks after Washington said it would renew ties with Havana. In February, they were up 187 percent; and so far this month, nearly 250 percent.

The boom is just one sign that the rush is on to see Cuba now - before, as many predict, McDonald’s claims a spot in Old Havana and Starbucks moves in on Cubita, the island’s premium coffee brand.

The sense that detente will unleash an invasion of Yankee tourists and change the unique character of one of the world’s last remaining bastions of communism is shared by many travelers flocking here.

Bahía de Guantánamo

Believed to be the world’s smallest bird, Cuba’s native bee hummingbird
buzzes around forests and field edges in many parts of the island,
where it feeds on flower nectar. It grows to about 2 inches long and
weighs less than an ounce, or less than a dime. Some locals call it
“zunzun,” and believe it is a symbol of love. Birders from all over the
world travel to Cuba in hopes of catching a glimpse of this tiny bird. (naturescrusaders.wordpress.com)

WASHINGTON/MIAMIMon Mar 23, 2015 1:06am EDT
(Reuters) - The
December breakthrough that upended a half-century of U.S.-Cuba enmity
has been portrayed as the fruit of 18 months of secret diplomacy.

But Reuters interviews
with more than a dozen people with direct knowledge of the process
reveal a longer, painstakingly cautious quest by U.S. President Barack Obama and veteran Cuba specialists to forge the historic rapprochement.

As
now-overt U.S.-Cuban negotiations continue this month, Reuters also has
uncovered new details of how talks began and how they stalled in late
2013 during secret sessions in Canada. Senior administration officials
and others also revealed how both countries sidelined their foreign
policy bureaucracies and how Obama sought the Vatican’s blessing to
pacify opponents.

Obama's
opening to Havana could help restore Washington's influence in Latin
America and give him a much-needed foreign policy success.

But
the stop-and-start way the outreach unfolded, with deep mistrust on
both sides, illustrates the obstacles Washington and Havana face to
achieving a lasting detente.

Obama was not the first Democratic president to reach out to Cuba,
but his attempt took advantage of - and carefully judged - a
generational shift among Cuban-Americans that greatly reduced the
political risks.

In a May 2008 speech to the conservative Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami, Obama set out a new policy allowing greater travel and remittances to Cuba for Cuban-Americans, though he added he would keep the embargo in place as leverage.

“Obama
understood that the policy changes he was proposing in 2008 were
popular in the Cuban-American community so he was not taking a real
electoral risk,” said Dan Restrepo, then Obama’s top Latin America
adviser.

Six months later,
Obama was validated by an unexpectedly high 35 percent of the
Cuban-American vote, and in 2012 he won 48 percent - a record for a
Democrat.

With his final election over, Obama instructed aides in December 2012 to make Cuba a
priority and "see how far we could push the envelope," recalled Ben
Rhodes, a Deputy National Security Advisor who has played a central role
in shaping Cuba policy.

Helping
pave the way was an early 2013 visit to Miami by Obama's top Latin
American adviser Ricardo Zuniga. As a young specialist at the State
Department he had contributed to a 2001 National Intelligence Estimate
that, according to another former senior official who worked on it,
marked the first such internal assessment that the economic embargo of Cuba had failed.

He
met a representative of the anti-Castro Cuban American National
Foundation, and young Cuban-Americans who, according to one person
present, helped confirm the waning influence of older Cuban exiles who
have traditionally supported the half-century-old embargo.

But
the White House wasn't certain. "I don’t think we ever reached a point
where we thought we wouldn’t have to worry about the reaction in Miami,"
a senior U.S. official said.

The
White House quietly proposed back-channel talks to the Cubans in April
2013, after getting notice that Havana would be receptive, senior U.S.
officials said.

Obama at
first froze out the State Department in part due to concern that "vested
interests" there were bent on perpetuating a confrontational approach,
said a former senior U.S. official. Secretary of State John Kerry was
informed of the talks only after it appeared they might be fruitful,
officials said.

Cuban
President Raul Castro operated secretly too. Josefina Vidal, head of
U.S. affairs at Cuba's foreign ministry, was cut out, two Americans
close to the process said. Vidal could not be reached for comment.

The
meetings began in June 2013 with familiar Cuban harangues about the
embargo and other perceived wrongs. Rhodes used his relative youth to
volley back.

"Part of the
point was 'Look I wasn’t even born when this policy was put in place …
We want to hear and talk about the future'," said Rhodes, 37.

The U.S. government had sent Gross, a USAID contractor, on risky missions to deliver communications equipment to Cuba's Jewish community. His December 2009 arrest put Obama's planned "new beginning" with Cuba on hold.

The
secret talks were almost derailed by Havana's steadfast demand that
Obama swap the "Cuban Three," a cell of Cuban spies convicted in Miami
but considered heroes in Havana, for Gross.

Obama refused a straight trade because Washington denied Gross was a spy and the covert diplomacy stalled as 2013 ended.

Even
as Obama and Castro shook hands at the Johannesburg memorial service
for South African leader Nelson Mandela, the situation behind the scenes
did not look very hopeful.

"The Cubans were dug in … And we did kind of get stuck on this," Rhodes said.Rhodes and Zuniga spent more than 70 hours negotiating with the Cubans, mostly at Canadian government facilities in Ottawa.

By
late spring 2014, Gross’ friends and family grew alarmed over his
physical and psychological state. The White House and the Cubans knew
that if he died in prison, repairing relations would be left to another
generation.

With Gross’
mother, Evelyn, dying of lung cancer, the U.S. government and his legal
team launched an effort to convince the Cubans to grant him a furlough
to see her.

That bid failed, despite an offer by Gross's lawyer Scott Gilbert to sit in his jail cell as collateral.

But a turning point had occurred at a January 2014 meeting in Toronto. The Americans proposed - to the Cubans' surprise - throwing Rolando Sarraff, a spy for Washington imprisoned in Cuba since 1995, into the deal, U.S. participants said.

The White House could claim it was a true "spy swap," giving it political cover. But it took 11 more months to seal the deal.

Castro
did not immediately agree to give up Sarraff, a cryptographer who
Washington says helped it disrupt Cuban spy rings in the United States.

And
Obama, stung by the outcry over his May 2014 exchange of five Taliban
detainees for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, was wary of another
trade perceived as lopsided, according to people close to the situation.

He
weighed other options, including having the Cubans plead guilty to the
charges against them and be sentenced to time served, according to the
people.

Gilbert worked
with the Obama administration, but urged it to move faster. From his
vantage point, the turning point came in April 2014, when it became
clear key Obama officials would support a full commutation of the Cuban
prisoners' sentences.

JG: What Obama did was a plus, but there are still roadblocks that must be removed.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

JG: A leopard does not change his spots. When Benjamin Netanyahu began to see that he could lose the election, he started apealing to the ultra-fanatic Orthodox Jews. They abandoned their traditional ultra-orthodox parties and voted for Likud.

JG: Now people are beginning to condemn religion-fanatic Netanyahu.

The White House said it is deeply concerned at what it called the "divisive rhetoric" in the Israeli election.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "It has been the policy of the
United States for more than 20 years that a two-state solution is the
goal of resolving the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians."

JG: Only if the Obama administration begins cutting civilian and military aid to the Israeli religion fanatics, will it receive the support of civilized secular Americans.

The US would "re-evaluate our approach" in the wake of Mr Netanyahu's comments ruling out a Palestinian state.

UN spokeswoman Farhan Haq called on the new Israeli government to
negotiate a peace that would create "a viable Palestinian state".

The EU foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, called for the re-launch of
the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, said he would work with any
Israeli government that accepts the two-state solution, without which,
he said, peace negotiations stood "no chance".

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said it was irrelevant who won the Israeli elections.

"We don't differentiate between Israeli parties because they
are bound to deny our people's rights and continue the aggression on
us," he said.

JG: the civilized world may have to send a very large multinational military force to forcefully create a secular civilian Palestinian state. Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres should be arrested, indicted and tried at the International Court of Justice for war crimes..

JG: I doubt very much that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party will do anything that positive. Jews control the financial affairs of the USA, and they are extremely large money-donors to the Democratic Party.

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